Providing management and support for remote devices and appliances typically requires some method of remote login or connection to the device or appliance. For example, an appliance may execute a remote desktop server, a secure shell (SSH) server, or similar server and may wait for an administrator or technician to connect and authenticate to perform maintenance tasks. Not only does this require constant use of resources on the appliance, the open server represents a potential security risk as it accepts incoming connections prior to authentication. Even if the appliance is secured by strong passwords or other authentication systems, the open server is vulnerable to denial of service attacks.
Furthermore, in order to connect to the appliance, the administrator needs to be able to find the appliance on the network. This requires either that the appliance be configured to broadcast its availability, again creating a security risk, or that the appliance be preconfigured with a static internet protocol (IP) address, reachable by the administrator. This may severely limit deployment scenarios, such as behind network address translators or gateways or where multiple appliances share a common public IP address. At best, these implementations require additional time and documentation during installation to record the appliance IP address, precluding easy re-deployment or plug-and-play solutions.